Disappearance at Devil's Rock: A Novel

Late one summer night, Elizabeth Sanderson receives the devastating news that every mother fears: Her 13-year-old son, Tommy, has vanished without a trace in the woods of a local park. The search isn't yielding any answers, and Elizabeth and her young daughter, Kate, struggle to comprehend Tommy's disappearance. They feel helpless and alone, and their sorrow is compounded by anger and frustration: The local and state police have uncovered no leads.

The Nameless Dark

The Nameless Dark debuts a major new voice in contemporary weird fiction. Within these minutes, you'll find whispers of the familiar ghosts of the classic pulps - Lovecraft, Bradbury, Smith - blended with Grau's uniquely macabre, witty storytelling, securing his place at the table amid this current Renaissance of literary horror.

Experimental Film

Fired at almost the same time as her son, Clark, is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, former film critic turned teacher Lois Cairns is caught in a depressive downward spiral, convinced she's a failure who's spent half her adult life writing about other people's dreams without ever seeing any of her own come true.

The Elementals

After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama's Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait.

The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Eight

For over three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror listeners crave. Now, with the eighth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. Encompassed in the audio of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as: Neil Gaiman; Kelley Armstrong; Stephen King; Linda Nagata; Laird Barron; Margo Lanagan; and many others.

Conspiracy of Ravens: The Shadow, Book 2

Nettie Lonesome made a leap - not knowing what she'd become. But now her destiny as the Shadow is calling. A powerful alchemist is leaving a trail of dead across the prairie. And Nettie must face the ultimate challenge: side with her friends and the badge on her chest or take off alone on a dangerous mission that is pulling her inexorably toward the fight of her life. When it comes to monsters and men, the world isn't black and white.

X's for Eyes

Brothers Macbeth and Drederick Tooms should have it made as fair-haired scions of an impossibly rich and powerful family of industrialists. Alas, life is complicated in mid-1950s USA when you're child heirs to the throne of Sword Enterprises, a corporation that has enshrined Machiavelli's The Prince as its operating manual. Consider also those long, cruel winters at the Mountain Leopard Boarding School for Assassins in the Himalayas, or that Dad may be a supervillain, while an uncle occasionally slaughters his nephews and nieces for sport.

Blister

They call her Blister. She's a hideously disfigured 23-year-old woman, living in a shed next to her father's house, hidden away from the world. Jason Tray is a successful cartoonist, banished to his agent's lakeside cabin for a few days of mandatory rest and relaxation. One night, while hanging out with a couple of the locals at a dive bar, he takes them up on their offer to go "see Blister," having no idea what they're talking about.

The Heavenly Table: A Novel

It is 1917, in that sliver of borderland that divides Georgia from Alabama. Dispossessed farmer Pearl Jewett ekes out a hardscrabble existence with his three young sons: Cane (the eldest, handsome, intelligent); Cob (short, heavyset, a bit slow); and Chimney (the youngest, thin, ill-tempered). Several hundred miles away in Southern Ohio, a farmer by the name of Ellsworth Fiddler lives with his son, Eddie, and his wife, Eula.

A Head Full of Ghosts

The lives of the Barretts, a normal suburban New England family, are torn apart when 14-year-old Marjorie begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia. To her parents' despair, the doctors are unable to stop Marjorie's descent into madness. As their stable home devolves into a house of horrors, they reluctantly turn to a local Catholic priest for help. Father Wanderly suggests an exorcism; he believes the vulnerable teenager is the victim of demonic possession.

Man with No Name: The Nanashi Series, Book 1

Nanashi was born into a life of violence. Delivered from the mean streets by the Heron Clan, he mastered the way of the gun and knife and swiftly ascended through yakuza ranks to become a dreaded enforcer. His latest task? He and an entourage of expert killers are commanded to kidnap Muzaki, a retired world-renowned wrestler under protection of the rival Dragon Syndicate. It should be business as bloody usual for Nanashi and his ruthless brothers-in-arms.

Breeds, Book 1

In a near-deserted coastal village, odd things are happening. Strangers are asking questions about the town's recluse. A local hunter discovers naked footprints in the snow. The stray dog population has ceased to exist. And with winter's most powerful weapon bearing down, things are about to become much, much worse. A werewolf book. Not a romance. Not at all.

The Fireman: A Novel

No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.

The Calcutta Chromosome: A Novel of Fevers, Delirium & Discovery

From Victorian India to near-future New York, The Calcutta Chromosome takes listeners on a wondrous journey through time as a computer programmer trapped in a mind-numbing job hits upon a curious item that will forever change his life. When Antar discovers the battered I.D. card of a long-lost acquaintance, he is suddenly drawn into a spellbinding adventure across centuries and around the globe, into the strange life of L. Murugan....

The Last Days of New Paris

It's 1941. In the chaos of wartime Marseille, American engineer - and occult disciple - Jack Parsons stumbles onto a clandestine anti-Nazi group, including surrealist theorist André Breton. In the strange games of the dissident diplomats, exiled revolutionaries, and avant-garde artists, Parsons finds and channels hope. But what he unwittingly unleashes is the power of dreams and nightmares, changing the war and the world forever.

Hex

Welcome to Black Spring, the seemingly picturesque Hudson Valley town haunted by the Black Rock Witch, a 17th-century woman whose eyes and mouth are sewn shut. Muzzled, she walks the streets and enters homes at will. She stands next to children's beds for nights on end. Everybody knows that her eyes may never be opened, or the consequences will be too terrible to bear.

Ninefox Gambit

To win an impossible war, Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.

Captain Kel Cheris of the Hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris' career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the Hexarchate itself might be next.

The Gods of H. P. Lovecraft

The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft: a brand new anthology that collects the 12 principal deities of the Lovecraftian Mythos and sets them loose. Featuring the biggest names in horror and dark fantasy, including many New York Times best sellers; full of original fiction; and individual commentary on each of the deities by Donald Tyson.

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

With his debut novel, The Grace of Kings, taking the literary world by storm, Ken Liu now shares his finest short fiction in The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. This mesmerizing collection features all of Ken's award-winning and award-finalist stories.

Cold Moon over Babylon: Valancourt 20th Century Classics

Welcome to Babylon, a typical sleepy Alabama small town, where years earlier the Larkin family suffered a terrible tragedy. Now they are about to endure another: 14-year-old Margaret Larkin will be robbed of her innocence and her life by a killer who is beyond the reach of the law. But something strange is happening in Babylon: traffic lights flash an eerie blue, a ghostly hand slithers from the drain of a kitchen sink, graves erupt from the local cemetery in an implacable march of terror.

The Ballad of Black Tom

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his black skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their trained cops. But when he delivers an occult page to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic.

The Obelisk Gate: The Broken Earth, Book 2

This is the way the world ends, for the last time. The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night. Essun - once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger - has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever. Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power - and her choices will break the world.

Burnt Offerings: Valancourt 20th Century Classics

Ben and Marian Rolfe are desperate to escape a stifling summer in their tiny Brooklyn apartment, so when they get the chance to rent a mansion in upstate New York for the entire summer for only $900, it's an offer that's too good to refuse. There's only one catch: behind a strange and intricately carved door in a distant wing of the house lives elderly Mrs. Allardyce, and the Rolfes will be responsible for preparing her meals. But Mrs. Allardyce never seems to emerge from her room, and it soon becomes clear that something weird and terrifying is happening in the house.

The Complex

There was no warning. No chance to escape. They came suddenly. Naked. Bloodthirsty. Sadistic. They descended upon the Pine Village Apartment Complex, relentlessly torturing and killing anyone they could find. Fearing for their lives, the residents of the complex must band together. Eleven strangers. The only thing they have in common is the unstoppable horde that wants to kill them. If they are to make it through the night, they must fight back.

Publisher's Summary

A spellbinding and darkly humorous coming-of-age story about an unusual boy whose family lives on the fringe of society and struggles to survive in a hostile world that shuns and fears them.

He was born an outsider, like the rest of his family. Poor yet resilient, he lives in the shadows with his aunt Libby and uncle Darren, folk who stubbornly make their way in a society that does not understand or want them. They are mongrels, mixed blood, neither this nor that.

The boy at the center of Mongrels must decide if he belongs on the road with his aunt and uncle or if he fits with the people on the other side of the tracks. For 10 years he and his family have lived a life of late-night exits and narrow escapes - always on the move across the South to stay one step ahead of the law. But the time is drawing near when Darren and Libby will finally know if their nephew is like them or not. And the close calls they've been running from for so long are catching up fast now. Everything is about to change.

A compelling and fascinating journey, Mongrels alternates between past and present to create an unforgettable portrait of a boy trying to understand his family and his place in a complex and unforgiving world. A smart and innovative story - funny, bloody, raw, and real - told in a rhythmic voice full of heart, Mongrels is a deeply moving, sometimes grisly novel that illuminates the challenges and tender joys of a life beyond the ordinary in a bold and imaginative new way.

Mongrels breathes new life into werewolves in fiction. Stepehen Graham Jones sets a story in a real world with seemingly real people and real life situations. By the end of the book, I began thinking of werewolves as more plausible than bigfoot to some degree. I think what has been lacking in werewolf related fiction is werewolves that fit into the real world. Mongrels is the Salem's Lot of werewolf fiction, sits perched at the top of the heap and worthy of Stoker consideration.

Graham is a hard author to put into a category, but I think experimental is a good fit. Mogrels , for instance, doesn't have a traditional plotline where the protagonist has a big happening early in the book that sets the stage for the rest of the book. Instead, the entire "plot" follows a young man and his family (aunt and uncle who are werewolves) as the young man comes of age. There really is not an overreaching event, but several vignettes of places and happenings of a wandering nomadic family of werewolves. The formatting and approach of the book aren't a hindrance but effectively keeps the reader engaged moving from one place and event the next.

Where the book really shines is the way Jones is able to make the characters believable. If there were really werewolves, how would they have to live? Well, werewolves are creatures of rage and hard to control and couldn't live within society's center, but at its edges. Vagabonds, hobos, homeless or transient folks, in general, would be where they'd exist. They'd live a life of poverty , of suspicion and anxiety. That's exactly what the author highlights in this book. I happen to have lived a life of poverty growing up and a lot of the things these characters do, just to survive and deal with crappy cars, doing morally questionable things and moving over and over again ring true with me.

The characters are very realistic even though they are werewolves if you grew up like I did you know a guy like Darren and you probably knew a woman like Libby and probably had a storytelling grandpa as well. Darren is a clearly flawed individual, even perhaps among werewolves but deep down has a heart of gold. Libby is the loving mother hen, that might rip your face off. Many families have secrets, this one is no different and that's a large part of the story.

Another great aspect is that while the base of Stephen Graham Jones' werewolves is set with the traditional werewolf, he has created a new mythos and lore for werewolves. Where did they come from? How do they breed? Consideration for what they eat while in wolf form and what happens if it's still there when they turn back to human is well covered.

The narration is also very good, but not quite as good as the prose. The narration was done by Chris Patton and Jonathan Yen, I'm no sure which one is doing each part. Patton is a veteran of over a hundred audiobook credits, including other horror greats such as Clive Barker's "Books of Blood" and Poppy Z Brite's "Lost Souls". Jonathan Yen also has many credits but I'm not familiar with any of his previous work. I believe that Patton is narrating the present story line , while Yen is narrating the chapters with that take place in the past.

I expected a totally werewolf story. These people live more like gypsies. They are moving to different locations based upon the killing in their area. The family, which is a aunt, uncle and nephew live with an intense desire to be normal. For the boy to find a replacement of for his grandfather. The lack of action made this an unappealing read for me.